"natural theology > III development > 1 Epistemology

vol III Development:

Chapter 1: Epistemology

page 3: Scientific method

Knowledge and action

In scientific investigation, it is permitted to invent any hypothesis and if it explains various large and independent classes of facts, it rises to the ranks of well grounded theory. Darwin

Aristotle began his Metaphysics with the sentence: All people by nature desire to know (Bekker 960 a 22). This natural desire is easily explained by the theory of evolution: knowledge is the key to survival. To survive, an organism must navigate in its environment. To navigate is to know where one is going, and to act effectively to get there. One must find food, shelter, companionship and all the other inputs to life. McKeon, p 689. Corpus Aristotelicum - Wikipedia

Knowledge provides a working model of oneself and one's environment. Using this model, the consequences of various actions can be predicted. Better procedures can be selected from the possibilities without the expense and possible danger of actually trying everything in reality.

Consistent successful action requires true knowledge. False knowledge is likely to lead to consistently unsuccessful action. No knowledge at all leads to random action which may or may not benefit the actor. This holds for organisms at all levels of complexity. Motile anaerobic bacteria need to to able to move away from dangerous oxygen concentrations just as human communities need to be able to move away from civil war. Bacteria, Civil war - Wikipedia

Experience teaches that although it is very useful, sure knowledge is not easy to acquire. We have no special access to the nature of things, and things are not always what they seem. So the history of science, like the history of any individual, is littered with mistakes and misunderstandings. Since the beginning of recorded history, there has been continued debate about what is true, and how to find out what is true. Parmenides - Wikipedia

Science concerns itself with ideas about the world that can be tested, at least in principle. To be tested here means to be put into practice and seen to work. It is the embodiment of the idea that knowledge is embodied. This practical feature of scientific thought is what gives us the fitness advantage we have over the rest of the world. So great is this advantage that we must postulate ethical restraints to govern the use of our power, lest we destroy the world that nurtures us. UNESCO: Ethics of science and technology

Science and spirit

Science is based on common experience, which is historically (and conveniently) divided into subjective and objective experience. Objective or physical experiences are those public phenomena studied by physics, chemistry, biology and their specialized permutations and combinations. Experience - Wikipedia

Common experience in the subjective realm exists, but is rather harder to pin down. Many people may agree on certain common elements of say, eating, but outside this commonality, there is room for much variation. This inner experience is taken here to be the subject of metaphysics, or theology. Since inner experience depends upon nurture as well as nature, theology and religion have a strong influence on how we experience life. Damasio

This is why religions devote much energy to forming the subjective experience of communities into a common mould. Experience suggests that people with a common mind cooperate better for their collective survival. The successful construction of any human corporate entity depends on the establishment of a certain esprit de corps which motivates individuals to value the welfare of the whole. Morale - Wikipedia

At one extreme, educators may try to install old and well tried ideas into the minds of their pupils. Such an approach is valid in a stable environment, where generation after generation experience similar problems in life and solve these problems with old and tested methods.

At the other extreme, in times of rapid change, there is an advantage in being able to assess complex and changing systems and work out effective ways to deal with them. Here we might educate for creativity and daring: an ability to explore large spaces of possibility to find valuable insights and technologies.

So can there be a science of spirit? I believe there can. We simply need to devise testable hypotheses about the nature of spirit. The requirement of testability means that theory, concept, law, and method of measurement - forever inseparable - are born into the world in union. Misner, Thorne and Wheeler, 1973 page 71

Science and creation

The chance of matter naturally aggregating itself into something like the computer I am using now seems to be vanishingly small. Yet computers are reproducing exponentially. The explanation of this phenomenon lies not in matter, but in the human spirit. The human spirit, like the wave function in quantum mechanics, cannot be observed directly, but its presence is clearly indicated by its effects. Wave function - Wikipedia

The importance of scientific method is that we can rely on things that have been carefully tested. Religion is just as important as any other human art or technology, and has just as great a need for true guidance. All industry is now beginning to realize the value of quality control and the importance of safety and environmental consistency in our manufactured products. Cosima Marriner

The quality of the internet has been greatly improved by the efforts of those who try to break it, leading to the development of new codes and behaviours to eliminate the vulnerabilities thus exposed. It is the purpose of this site to find and report religious ideas that have been tested and found to work. Part of my task is to identify and suggest how to fix the vulnerabilities of our existing set of religions. Internet security - Wikipedia, Dan Auerbach and Eva Galperin

Science differs from traditional religion in its attitude to existing beliefs. For many religions, traditional beliefs are sacred. For science in a moving world, a belief is only as trustworthy as the evidence supporting it. Once we see that a belief has feet of clay, we are moved to create a replacement.

The ancient assumption that God is outside the world and invisible puts theology outside the realm of science. Here we wish to develop and test the alternative assumption, that God and the world are different names for the same entity. Since we and our experience are part of the world, this assumption opens the way to scientific theology and religion.

(revised 7 August 2014)

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Avis, Paul D L, The Methods of Modern Theology : the Dream of Reason , Marshall Pickering 1986 'The purpose of this book is to give an in depth critical introduction to the methods of modern theology.' [xi] Discusses Barth, Lonergan, Pannenberg, Rahner, Ritschl, Schleiermacher, Tennant and Tillich .
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Damasio, Antonio R, The Feeling of What Happens : Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness , Harcourt Brace 1999 Jacket: 'In a radical departure from current views on consciousness, Damasio contends that explaining how we make mental images or attend to those images will not suffice to elucidate the mystery. A satisfactory hypothesis for the making of consciousness must explain how the sense of self comes to mind. Damasio suggests that the sense of self does not depend on memory or on reasoning or even less on language. [it] depends, he argues, on the brain's ability to portray the living organism in the act of relating to an object. That ability, in turn, is a consequence of the brain's involvement in the process of regulating life. The sense of self began as yet another device aimed an ensuring survival.'
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Darwin, Charles, and Harriet Ritvo (Introduction), The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (Foundations of Natural History) , Johns Hopkins University Press 1998
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Kutchins, Herb, and Stuart A Kirk, Making Us Crazy: DSM: The Psychiatric Bible and the Creation of Mental Disorders, The Free Press 1997 Jacket: 'What makes a person crazy? Nowadays it's the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV). For many mental health professionals, the DSM is an indispensable diagnostic tool, and as the standard reference book for psychiatrists and psychotherapists everywhere, it has an inestimable influence on the way we view other human beings. Deciding what we call sane and normal, and reflecting the prejudices and values of each generation, it's not surprising that the DSM has become a battleground. What goes in it, and stays out, is of monumental importance. Homosexuals, for example, fought long and hard to have their "lifestyle" erased from its pages.'
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Lonergan, Bernard J F, Method in Theology, University of Toronto Press for Lonergan Research Institute 1996 Introduction: 'A theology mediates between a cultural matrix and the signifcance and role of religion in that matrix. ... When the classicist notion of culture prevails, theology is conceived as a permanent achievement, and then one discourses on its nature. When culture is conceived empirically, theology is known to be an ongoing process, and then one writes on its method. Method ... is a framework for collaborative creativity.'
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McKeon, Richard, and (editor), The Basic Works of Aristotle, Random 1941 Introduction: 'The influence of Aristotle, in the ... sense of initiating a tradition, has been continuous from his day to the present, for his philosophy contains the first statement, explicit or by opposition, of many of the technical distinctions, definitions, and convictions on which later science and philosophy have been based...' (xi)
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Misner, Charles W, and Kip S Thorne, John Archibald Wheeler, Gravitation, Freeman 1973 Jacket: 'Einstein's description of gravitation as curvature of spacetime led directly to that greatest of all predictions of his theory, that the universe itself is dynamic. Physics still has far to go to come to terms with this amazing fact and what it means for man and his relation to the universe. John Archibald Wheeler. . . . this is a book on Einstein's theory of gravity. . . . '
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Newton, Isaac, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica , Harvard University Press 1972 One of the most important contributions to human knowledge. First translated from the Latin by Andrew Motte in 1729,
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Popper, Karl Raimund, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1972 Preface: 'The way in which knowledge progresses, and expecially our scientific knowledge, is by unjustified (and unjustifiable) anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions to our problems, by conjectures. These conjectures are controlled by criticism; that is, by attempted refutations, which include severely critical tests.' [p viii]
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Popper, Karl Raimund, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, 1992 Jacket: 'A striking picture of the logical character of scientific discovery is presented here ... Science is presented as ... the attempt to find a coherent theory of the world composed of bold conjectures and disciplines by penetrating criticism.'
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Links

Bacteria - Wikipedia, Bacteria - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Bacteria (singular: bacterium) constitute a large domain or kingdom of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals. Bacteria were among the first life forms to appear on Earth, and are present in most habitats on the planet. Bacteria inhabit soil, water, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste,[2] and the deep portions of Earth's crust. Bacteria also live in plants, animals (see symbiosis), and have flourished in manned space vehicles.' back

Civil war - Wikipedia, Civil war - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly united nation state. The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies. The term is a calque of the Latin bellum civile which was used to refer to the various civil wars of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC.' back

Corpus Aristotelicum - Wikipedia, Corpus Aristotelicum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The Corpus Aristotelicum is the collection of Aristotle's works that have survived from antiquity through Medieval manuscript transmission. These texts, as opposed to Aristotle's lost works, are technical philosophical treatises from within Aristotle's school. Reference to them is made according to the organization of Immanuel Bekker's nineteenth-century edition, which in turn is based on ancient classifications of these works.' back

Cosima Marriner, Hinge horrors cause pram rethink, 'Toddlers getting their fingers crushed in stroller folding hinges and falling from detachable pram seats have prompted an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission crackdown on pram and stroller safety. The consumer watchdog is particularly concerned about toddler seats that can be attached to single prams after the birth of a second child. Children have fallen out of these unstable seats, while others sitting in toddler seats too low to the ground have caught their fingers in the spokes of pram wheels.' back

Dan Auerbach and Eva Galperin, Leaks Show NSA is Working to Undermine Encrypted Communications, Here's How You Can Fight Back, 'n one of the most significant leaks to date regarding National Security Agency (NSA) spying, the New York Times, the Guardian, and ProPublica reported today that the NSA has gone to extraordinary lengths to secretly undermine our secure communications infrastructure, collaborating with GCHQ (Britain's NSA equivalent) and a select few intelligence organizations worldwide.' back

Experience - Wikipedia, Experience - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event. The history of the word experience aligns it closely with the concept of experiment. For example, the word experience could be used in a statement like: "I have experience in fishing". The concept of experience generally refers to know-how or procedural knowledge, rather than propositional knowledge: on-the-job training rather than book-learning. Philosophers dub knowledge based on experience "empirical knowledge" or "a posteriori knowledge".' back

Internet security - Wikipedia, Internet security - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Internet security is a branch of computer security specifically related to the Internet, often involving browser security but also network security on a more general level as it applies to other applications or operating systems on a whole. Its objective is to establish rules and measures to use against attacks over the Internet.' back

Morale - Wikipedia, Morale - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Morale (also known as esprit de corps) is the capacity of a group's members to maintain belief in an institution or goal, particularly in the face of opposition or hardship. Morale is often referenced by authority figures as a generic value judgment of the willpower, obedience, and self-discipline of a group tasked with performing duties assigned by a superior. According to Alexander H. Leighton, "morale is the capacity of a group of people to pull together persistently and consistently in pursuit of a common purpose"' back

Parmenides - Wikipedia, Parmenides - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Parmenides of Elea (early 5th century BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy, his only known work is a poem which has survived only in fragmentary form. In it, Parmenides describes two views of reality. In the Way of Truth, he explained how reality is one; change is impossible; and existence is timeless, uniform, and unchanging. In the Way of Opinion, he explained the world of appearances, which is false and deceitful. These thoughts strongly influenced Plato, and through him, the whole of western philosophy.' back

UNESCO, Ethics of Science and Technology, 'Since its involvement in promoting international reflection on the ethics of life sciences in the 1970s, UNESCO continues to build and reinforce linkages among ethicists, scientists, policy-makers, judges, journalists, and civil society to assist Member States in enacting sound and reasoned policies on ethical issues in science and technology.' back

Wave function - Wikipedia, Wave function - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'A wave function or wavefunction (also more appropriately named as statefunction) in quantum mechanics describes the quantum state of a particle and how it behaves. Typically, its values are complex numbers and, for a single particle, it is a function of space and time.' back